


there goes a love song drifting out to sea

by nirav



Series: a child of god, much like yourself [9]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 06:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6412366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i've invested too much time to give you up that easy/to the doubts that complicate your mind</p>
<p>[aka, Lucy and Alex have a serious conversation.  Like adults.  No, really.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	there goes a love song drifting out to sea

It’s been almost six months since Alex and Lucy became--  _ something _ , something they still haven’t defined and that Kara still doesn’t know what to call-- and Lucy reappears at Kara’s door with uncertainty and a sticky bun bribe.

 

“What’d she do this time?” Kara asks by way of greeting, standing aside to let Lucy in.

 

“Nothing,” Lucy says, too quickly to be true, and Kara scoffs as she closes her head.

 

“Weren’t you the one that said Alex had the emotional self-awareness of an Oreo?”

 

“Okay, it’s not quite-- fine, yes, okay,” Lucy says with a sigh.  She bypasses the counter and drops the food on the coffee table as she flops onto the couch.  “I just-- I don’t know.”  She slumps into the couch, curling into a corner with weak shoulders and tired eyes.

 

“Is everything okay?”

 

“Yes,” Lucy says.  “No.  I don’t know.  I just-- I keep waking up in the middle of the night because she has nightmares, I think, but she won’t talk to me about them, and she won’t acknowledge them, and she’s not sleeping enough and I don’t know what to do!”

 

“Oh,” Kara says.  She settles carefully onto the other end of the couch and mirrors Lucy’s posture, knees curving and legs folding under her tightly, arms holding herself into a smaller space than she’s ever been meant to hold.

 

“Oh?” Lucy raises her eyebrows, eyeballing Kara from her end of the couch.  “This isn’t new?”

 

“I-- I don’t know about that.”  Kara picks her words carefully, slowly.  “I don’t remember her having them often, except for the first year or so after her father died.”

 

“Then what?” 

 

“I have them, too,” she says.  She pulls at the cuff of her jeans, looking intently down at her fingers instead of Lucy.  “Did Alex ever tell you what I said to her when I was hallucinating because of the black mercy, or red kryptonite?”

 

“No,” Lucy says.  Her voice is soft-- much softer than Kara is used-- and she shifts enough to face Kara head on.  “It’s not my business, Kara, you don’t have to--”

 

“I told her I didn’t have a sister,” Kara says.  “I told her we weren’t family, that she was nothing to me.  And Alex has-- she’s done  _ everything  _ in the world to take care of me since I landed here, and I said those things, and every single night since then, I have nightmares of how she looked when I said that to her.”

 

“Kara,” Lucy says, quiet and wavering, and she moves halfway across the couch, hands out, but halts in the middle and hovers, waiting, uncertain.

 

“If she loves me half as much as I love her, then that’s probably what she’s dreaming about.”

 

“Kara,” Lucy says again.  “She knows you didn’t mean those things.”

 

“Ever since I landed here, she’s looked out for me.  She kept giving things up for me and I wasn’t even there for her when she having trouble and then I said that to her.  More than once.”

 

Lucy stays quiet but moves closer to Kara, her hand careful on Kara’s shoulder.  “Alex knows how much you love her,” she says eventually.

 

“I know,” Kara says with a deep breath.  She squares her shoulders and smiles at Lucy, sad around the edges.  “So what can I do for you?”

 

“It’s not import--”

 

“I can throw you to Mars,” Kara says.

 

“Is it space, the moon, or Mars?  Your threats are pretty sloppy.”

 

Kara takes her glasses off and glares at Lucy, and Lucy sighs.  

 

“I just-- don’t know how to move forward with her,” she says.  “She’s just so set on us not being an  _ us _ , and I don’t think that’s what she wants, but I’m not sure anymore.”

 

“She likes you,” Kara says simply. “Trust me.”

 

“Then how do I get her to  _ do _ anything aside from fu--” Lucy’s mouth snaps shut just before Kara claps her hands over her ears.

 

“No!  No details!”

 

“Sorry,” Lucy squeals out, clearing her throat loudly.  “I just meant...I don’t know, I can’t tell if I’m being selfish or pushy to want more, or if she wants that, too, or what.”

 

“You want my advice?” Kara says.

 

“Yes!  Please!”

 

“Alex won’t be the one who makes a move.  Ever.  You have to do that.  Even when we were kids, she kept things close, and even closer after her dad died.  If you want her to talk to you, then you have to push.”

 

“What if it’s too much?”

 

“Between us?” Kara says with a wide smile.  “It won’t be.”

  
  


* * *

 

The DEO is empty this late at night, save for the night shift monitoring the feeds, and Lucy’s steps are too loud in the empty hallway.  She waves down the agents who start to leap to attention when she walks through command, even without her uniform, and issues a distracted “Carry on,” as she keeps walking towards the office she shares with Alex.

 

Lucy shuts the door behind her and leans back against it.  Alex, predictably, is still at her desk, surrounded by paperwork and empty coffee mugs and squinting at her computer.   She doesn’t look up from her work, and Lucy counts to twenty before she finally speaks.

 

“You’ve been here for almost sixteen hours, you know,” she says.

 

“Yeah,” Alex says, still not looking away from her computer.

 

“You need to sleep.”

 

“I’ll get there.”  The printer under her desk spits out a stack of papers and Alex ducks down to grab them, scrawling her name quickly and stapling them together.  “I need your signature on these.”

 

Lucy rolls her eyes and moves to Alex’s side, leaning closer than necessary as she takes the pen out of Alex’s hand and signs the papers.

 

“I talked with Kara tonight,” she says.  She rotates to sit on Alex’s desk, tugging on the arm of her chair until it rolls directly in front of her and she can look squarely down at Alex.  

 

“What do you two have to talk about that doesn’t have to do with work?”

 

“You,” she says.  Alex flushes and clears her throat.  “Alex,” Lucy says quietly.  “Look at me.”

 

It takes six seconds of Lucy holding her breath before Alex finally complies, and Lucy tucks her hands under her legs to keep them still.  

 

“We’ve been working together for six months,” she starts.  “And we’ve been-- something-- for almost as long.”

 

“Okay,” Alex says, and Lucy huffs out a sigh.

 

“Why does it have to be so hard to talk to you about things?”

 

“I’m sitting right here, you know,” Alex says.  “Listening.”

 

“No, you’re sitting right here trying to find a way out of this conversation,” Lucy says.

 

“What conversation are we even having?  What do you want to talk about, Lucy?”

 

“Maybe about the fact that we’ve been sleeping together for months but you refuse to acknowledge it!”

 

“There’s nothing to acknowledge.”  Alex shoves her chair back and stands up, pacing along the wall behind her desk.  “Except for the fact that we shouldn’t be, because we work together--”

 

“That excuse again?” 

 

“It’s not an excuse, it’s a completely valid--”

 

“Okay, fine,” Lucy says, throwing her hands up.  “I quit.”

 

Alex stops pacing abruptly, staring at Lucy.

 

“What?”

 

“You want to hide behind that excuse, then fine,” Lucy says.  “I’m calling your bluff.  I’ll hand in my resignation tomorrow and I can be back working at CatCo and making a  _ lot _ more money by next Monday.”

 

“What are you-- Lucy, what the hell, you’re too good to waste on corporate lawsuits--”

 

“I’m tired of you hiding behind work as a lame excuse to treat me like crap,” Lucy snaps.  “You know what, Alex?  I like you!  I like you a lot.  I have made this exceedingly clear on multiple occasions, and I’m pretty sure you like me, too.  But I’m tired of being the one who keeps trying and letting you treat me like some piece on the side.”

 

“I’m not--I didn’t mean to--” Alex says quietly, slumping back against the wall.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“Sorry only gets you so far,” Lucy says.  “You need to  _ talk _ to me.”

 

“What is there to talk about?”

 

“Maybe you can tell me about why you have nightmares every night,” Lucy says.  “Or why you’re so goddamned adamant about pretending  _ this _ \--” she gestures between the two of them.  “Isn’t happening.”

 

Alex is quiet, arms wrapped around her stomach and gaze locked on the floor.  Lucy waits, gripping too tightly to the edge of the desk, until minutes have crept by with nothing from Alex.

 

“Kara told me about what she said to you, when she was infected,” Lucy says softly.  “About saying you aren’t her family.”

 

Alex’s breathing hitches audibly, and Lucy’s teeth ache as she clenches her jaw against the way her hands try to move to touch Alex.  

 

“She didn’t mean it,” Lucy says.  “You know how much she loves you, how much she needs you.”

 

“She doesn’t need me,” Alex says.  “She never has, and she was right.  I don’t have a life without Kara.”

 

“Alex--”

 

“Everything I’ve done,” Alex barrels on.  “Everything, every bad thing I’ve done, has been for Kara.  My career, all of the lies, the people I’ve hurt--”

 

“Who?” Lucy asks quietly.

 

“What?”

 

“Who have you hurt?”

 

“It doesn’t matter.”  Alex focuses on the floor.

 

“Alex,” Lucy says again.  “I’m military.  I did three tours in Iraq.  Do you really think you’re the only person here with regrets?”

 

“It’s not the same,” Alex says.  “What you did in the military isn’t the same as what I did before I was even working for the DEO.”

 

“You don’t know that.”

 

“I ruined someone’s life,” Alex half-shouts, her eyes snapping up to finally meet Lucy’s.  “I destroyed someone else’s life so I could protect my sister’s.”

 

“What did you do?” Lucy clasps her hands over her knees, not moving from her spot on the desk, and waits.  “Please talk to me,” she adds after a moment.  “For once, can you please just-- talk to me like someone who matters in your life.”

 

“That’s not why I don’t talk to you.”  It’s quiet and tired, and Lucy sighs and says nothing in response, waiting and watching instead as Alex fiddles with her fingers, wrapping and unwrapping them around each other over and over.

 

“I told you about when Hank recruited me,” she says finally.  “I was a mess then, because--”  She starts to pace, measured steps parallel to the wall, back and forth and back and forth.

 

“My last year of grad school, one of my colleagues was about to graduate.  She’d already published her dissertation when it came out that all of her results were faked.  They took away her degree and she was basically blacklisted from working in the field again.”

 

Alex pauses in her pacing, hands on her hips and eyes locked on her shoes.  Her shoulders tremble visibly, and Lucy digs her fingers into her knees to stay where she is.

 

“I sabotaged her research,” Alex says quietly.  “She had come across a way to-- to detect alien biology using basically a heat-sensitive camera.  And I panicked, and I used the fact that we were friends to access her work and change her data and leaked it to a review board.

 

“I destroyed her life,” Alex finishes.  “Last I heard she was working as a night shift tech for some third-rate lab outside of Seattle.  She had one of the best minds in the country, and I ruined her.  I ruined her life to protect Kara, to keep her from being exposed, and now she is anyways, because she wanted to save  _ me _ .  I can’t protect her.  I’m not enough.”

 

“You protected your family,” Lucy says.  

 

“And I ruined her life.”

 

“When I was in Iraq I allowed my commanding officer to pressure me into not prosecuting a sexual harassment case to protect his poker buddy,” Lucy says flatly.  

 

Alex squints at her, the way she does when scrutinizing a particularly complex puzzle or equation, and Lucy takes a deep breath, and then another.

 

“I told you,” she says quietly.  “You did things that you regret.  So did I.”

 

“So what does it mean, then?” Alex says.  “What do we do with it?”

 

“Use it,” Lucy says.  “I wouldn’t have helped Kara rescue you and Hank if I hadn’t given in to my CO’s demands that time.  You would have shot Maxwell Lord in the face seventy times over if you hadn’t still felt like this about what you did.”

 

“I should still shoot him in the face,” Alex grumbles.

 

“Don’t tell me if you do,” Lucy says.  “Plausible deniability is the only way I’ll be able to keep you out of jail.”

 

It draws a smile out of Alex-- a small one, uncertain at the corners and not quite enough to calm her tense shoulders or the way she keeps twisting her fingers around one another-- and, in turn, one from Lucy.

 

“You’re a good person, Alex,” Lucy says.  “And you’re enough.  You’re more than enough for Kara, for the DEO, for your family and the country and this  _ planet _ that you put yourself in danger to protect.”

 

Alex glances back down at the floor, not quite fast enough to disguise the color that tinges her cheek, and clears her throat.  

 

“And what about for you?” She says after a moment.

 

“Jury’s still out,” Lucy says with a smile.  She waits, watching levelly, as Alex finally breaks from her self-imposed banishment by the wall and moves closer, measured steps bringing her back to stand in front of Lucy.  “I suppose you could make an argument for--”

 

Alex kisses her, soft and sure, hands on the desk on either side of Lucy, and Lucy’s fingers curl into the loose material of Alex’s shirt.  She pulls back after a moment, still latched onto Alex’s shirt, and licks her lips.  

 

“That’s not what I meant,” she says, even as she tugs on Alex’s shirt.  

 

“I’m sure,” Alex says, and she curves a hand around the back of Lucy’s head and presses a kiss along the line of her jaw.

 

“Dammit,” Lucy mumbles.  “Why are you so good at this?”  Her voice skips up half an octave as Alex bites down on her ear.  “It’s so unfair.”

 

“I’m sure,” Alex says, pulling back just enough that Lucy starts to follow her.  “And you’re right.”

 

“About how good you are in bed?  Yeah, I know,” Luy says crossly. She pulls at Alex’s shirt again, but Alex holds still, taking a slow breath.

 

“About me and-- how I’ve been treating you,” she says.  Lucy slides her hand under the hem of Alex’s shirt, palm pressing gently over the still-red scar that follows the curve of her ribcage, her touch a habit of the six months since Kara flew Alex into the DEO on a makeshift backboard.  “I just don’t know what I  _ should _ be doing.”

 

“How about we start with dinner,” Lucy says.  “At a real restaurant, not the office, and we don’t talk about work, and everyone keeps their pants on.”

 

“Dinner,” Alex repeats.  “Okay.  Dinner.”

 

“Let’s go,” Lucy says with a smile, sliding off the desk and skimming her fingertips along Alex’s scar as she pulls her hand free from Alex’s shirt.  “My treat.  Paperwork can wait for Monday.”

 

Alex rolls her eyes but allows Lucy to hand her her coat and keys and lead her out of the office.

 

“Am I allowed to take your pants off after dinner?” She asks.  

 

“Are you implying that I’m the kind of girl to put out on the first date?” Lucy shoves an elbow into her ribs and Alex dodges it with a smile, a wider smile than she’s had in months, and Lucy’s fake indignation slips away; she reaches out instead to take Alex’s hand and slides her fingers in between Alex’s as they walk.  

 

Alex doesn’t pull away, and Lucy doesn’t let go.


End file.
